“This film nearly killed us,” said director Davis Guggenheim, as he accepted the audience award tonight for best US documentary at the Sundance Film Festival for his film, “Waiting for Superman,” which takes a tough look at the role teachers’ unions have played in the devastation of America’s urban schools.

Guggenheim, who previously won an Oscar for directing “An Inconvenient Truth,” said he was told it was “the worst idea you could possibly have” when he proposed to go into the “wormhole” that is American education.

The film, which wags dubbed “‘An Inconvenient Truth’ for Republicans,” has been picked up by Paramount Vantage for distribution later this year.

Guggenheim added that though he was proud of opposing aparthied in South Africa, a South African woman once told him, “You should be ashamed of the way you treat your children in America.

The US audience award winner for dramatic filmmaking was the hopelessly generic “Happythankyoumoreplease,” a bland sitcom-style look at cute New York City singles looking for love. (One of them receives dating wisdom from a small, gifted black child he meets on the subway and literally takes home to live with him to be a sort of pet/mascot/good luck charm.)

The film is directed by and starring Josh Radnor of CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother.” At the awards ceremony, Radnor said he was delicately asked what was “rebellious” about his utterly formulaic feel-good film and recalled that he considered the question, “Slightly insulting, but not really” because, he said, “It’s about people saying no to cynicism and saying yes to love.”

Gosh, that’s brilliant. I take it all back. The film has not yet acquired a U.S. distributor.